The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are excited to announce a larger than life public display of 2014 Gold Medalist Steven Paul’s photo, Lost Time!

As part of their support for the Awards, Colossal Media is installing Lost Time, a photograph by Gold Medalist Steven Paul, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School, as a massive, hand-painted public mural on the wall of a building at Broadway and Bedford Streets in Brooklyn.

We stopped by over the weekend to check out the process, and you can still watch them paint today as they finish up painting the face and hair. There is a beautiful pedestrian mall with tables situated under umbrellas and plenty of yummy restaurants, so grab a slice of New York style pizza and watch the Wall Dogs work their magic!

I could smell the linseed oil as I approached the wall, and later learned that they roll the linseed oil on the wall so their brushes can easily spread the paint on the surface without drying too fast or getting too tacky before they have the chance to blend the colors. The process is fascinating to see, and is no easy task. Colossal mixes the colors in their studio, then primes the wall and outlines the image. Then the real painting begins, as they work from the background, to the sleeves of her shirt, to the hair and finish by filling in the details in her face.

I got to chat with the artists and learned that one of the Wall Dogs (the namesake of their sky-high painters) is also an alum of the Scholastic Awards! Colossal paints about 300 murals and billboards a year, with only 15 Wall Dogs on their team, these guys are experts at painting as quickly, efficiently, and precisely as possible. As they strap into their harnesses and clip on to the rigging, they are lifted almost 30 feet in the sky as they use printed images of Steven’s photo as their guide while they begin to block in the color. At one point they asked about a mural painting category for the Awards, and for now, Future New is the place to submit your large-scale, outdoor works of art!

If you get a chance to visit today, or while the mural is finished, post a picture and tag #AWawards and #alwayshandpaint! Don’t forget to follow @artandwriting and @colossalmedia on Instagram and Twitter, too!